For the first time ever at a Mass in the Ordinary Form, I heard a priest say in his homily that belief in Christ requires us to oppose things such as the HHS Mandate and Plan B being available over the counter. He actually mentioned the words “contraception” and “abortion”. I even heard a barely-audible “Yes!” from the guy sitting next to me in the pew.

The priest pointed out that in view of Jesus’s teaching, he was mad, or bad, or God – there is no fourth option. That Christianity is a religion of longing, and that longing is a vital part of the human condition (he mentioned that one of the things sent into space in the 1970s was a recording of the cavatina from Beethoven’s Op.130, on the score of which the composer had written ‘Sehnsucht’) That the Latin word ‘desiderium’ reflects the belief of the ancients that what is longed for is beyond earthly concerns – the stars symbolizing this (I confess this had never occurred to me).

In his excellent homily, Father exhorted us to seek sanctity! We need not look at it as being ‘perfect’ in the sense that we work hard to see results here on earth (so not like our academic straight A’s and whatnot). The Evangelists gave us such moments of grace as in today’s OF Gospel, and such moments of failure like the denial of Christ by Simon Peter to show us that if these men became remained faithful, through all their failures, then so can you. He also mentioned Blessed Teresa of Calcutta’s period of the dark night, and that the most holy men and women suffer. I think Supertradmum would have liked it. :)

Father stressed that “picking up our cross daily” was a part of our faith ……… and that we should be prepared to be opposed, even persecuted for our beliefs and practices. Two brothers, Christians from Palestine, were with us for worship and we heard some of their family’s story of being caught in the middle (in Bethlehem) between the Jews and the Muslims. Father also provided (and encouraged us to pray) the daily guide from the USCCB for the Fortnight of Freedom, reminding us that our practice as Christians should NOT be taken for granted. Following Jesus means sharing the burden (and joy) of the Cross.
Most people were vocally supportive, if not all.

Our Priest exhorted us to be willing to speak when someone is not living in the truth. He also said that we do not have the same God as the Muslims,that we believe in a Trinitarian God. I was immediately thinking of what a Cardinal recently said “that we worship the same God” as the Muslims. Father also reminded us that St. John the Baptist was willing to speak and willing to suffer for it. We are called to the same courageous faith.

Our pastor talked about the coming persecution and exhorted parents to get their children to Mass more than once a week so as to fortify them. He pointed out that we are not being persecuted for our doctrines such as the Trinity or transubstatiation, but for trying to live a moral life in keeping with God’s law. This was an EF Mass.

My pastor reflected on the feast of the nativity of John the Baptist this coming week. He talked about how John’s birth is celebrated near the summer solstice and Jesus’ near the winter solstice. The days after John’s birthday grow shorter and shorter, those after Jesus’ grow longer and longer. He compared this to John’s statement that “I must decrease and he must increase.”

My pastor also discussed John the Baptist’s nativity. He said that John was a martyr for marriage, comparing the unholy union of Herod & Herodias to the distortions in our own culture. Then in a firm, deliberate voice he added, “marriage between one man and one woman”.

I attended Divine Liturgy at Mt. Tabor Monastery in Redwood Valley, California. The occasion was the installation of the new abbot. Today’s gospel in the Byzantine liturgy was Matt 8:28-34 — the Lord’s exorcism of the Gadarene demoniac.

In his homily, the bishop recounted his personal encounter with the evil one as a young priest, when he was called on to exorcise a young child who was possessed. The bishop’s message was the reality of the Evil One, how much the world is under his influence, and how all Christians must be on constant guard lest they become enslaved by sin. The exorcism was successful.

I based my homily on: “Who do you say that I am?” All got it wrong except for Peter, inspired by the Father. Many today want to create their own god/ religion to suit their own sins, desires, whims … Only thing fuzzy about Jesus was His beard. He told it as it was/ is. In this Year of Faith, we must deepen our knowledge and faith in Jesus Christ, so we may respond with Peter & his successors: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God,” and merit eternal life with Him.

We had the life of Mother Mary Elias of the Blessed Sacrament, a Carmelite prioress, and her and her community’s hardships during the 1910 Mexican Revolution. Would we be able to withstand similar persecution?

Vigil Mass at Holy Ghost in Denver, Father Michael Warren OMV spoke about the Fortnight for Freedom. He told us about Blessed Humphrey Pritchard, martyred for being a Catholic near Oxford on 5 July 1589 along with Blessed Fr. George Nichols, Blessed Fr. Richard Yaxley and Blessed Thomas Belson. In this day and age would we be willing to pay the same price for our faith?

Our pastor noted that we often give up in the spiritual life because we focus on the pain and not the gain of saying “no” to ourselves. He ended by saying that if you can’t say “no” to yourself, then you can’t say “yes” to God.

Lucked out here in the relic-free, peoples republic of Massachusetts. I fortunately did not hear the homily.

I think listening to the Franciscan Friars online preaching substantial ideas poorly has ruined my ability to tolerate bad ideas preached well. (i.e. I am happy that we as Catholics sacrificed our first amendment rights in order to feed the poor. Now we need to sacrifice our second amendment right so that there will no more guns and violence.)

Are we ready to confess Jesus? Father said that we can’t confess Jesus is Lord without knowing who He is, and the credo is our confession….also made mention that it’s not a coincidence that pigs were where the demons wanted to go into….

Father has touched on the subject more than once. He feels the responsibility of his state in life in a most profound manner. He believes that priests – include bishops and popes – have a hard time saving their own souls. To whom much is given, much is expected. The marvelous honor of being able to bring Our Lord to their flocks is the supreme gift, along with the power in the confessional to forgive sins. The responsibility for the souls under their care is enormous. How well do they do their job? Are they teaching and preaching truth or are they leading their people down the wrong path? He asked that we pray – daily – for priests and for vocations.

Our Permanent Deacon preached the homily. He start with pointing out that after St. Peter got the right answer to “Who do you say I Am?” Christ told the Apostles not to tell anyone. He pointed out that since Christ was not the kind of Messiah that Israel expected it was not yet time to announce who He (Christ) was, the cross had to come first.
He then pointed out how even today, when we have had access to both the New Testament and the Tradition of the Church that many people still can’t answer the question, and the forty years of bad catechesis and a society who would rather believe that Christ was “either a myth, legend, or a really good guy who lived 2000 years ago and has nothing to say about life today,” haven’t helped the situation.
He then went on to say that it comes down to a matter of truth. If Christ is who he said he is then its a matter of absolutes. He then brought in Relativism and how that philosophy is flawed, but more, how it is leading to a nation and world incompatible with Christian principles.
He finished up talking about the Fortnight for Freedom as a response to that, and asked us to participate at the Fortnight Perpetual Adoration that a nearby parish is holding.

At the OF Mass yesterday, Father introduced the theme by how we are identified by our names and impressed upon us the need to have respect for the name of Jesus, and reminded those of a certain age (myself included) how our teachers made us bow our heads at the name of Jesus.

I just heard one of the best sermons ever today on the Feast of Peter and Paul, which is a holy day of obligation moved to the Sunday today. Father Dominic Rolls talked about Catholic identity through the Church’s apostolic succession. His sermon revolved around the fact that being Catholic was the unity we all have with Christ through, His Church and through the protection which the Church has given us concerning Scripture, and us not being a religion of sola Scriptura or sola Fide. Father remarked that being a Catholic is not creating your religion, but entering into the mystery of the Church which Christ established through Peter. Bravo, Father Dominic

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“This blog is like a fusion of the Baroque ‘salon’ with its well-tuned harpsichord around which polite society gathered for entertainment and edification and, on the other hand, a Wild West “saloon” with its out-of-tune piano and swinging doors, where everyone has a gun and something to say. Nevertheless, we try to point our discussions back to what it is to be Catholic in this increasingly difficult age, to love God, and how to get to heaven.” – Fr. Z

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- 2 Chronicles 7:14 RSV

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"We as Catholics have not properly combated (the culture) because we have not been taught our Catholic Faith, especially in the depth needed to address these grave evils of our time. This is a failure of catechesis both of children and young people that has been going on for fifty years. It is being addressed, but it needs much more radical attention... What has also contributed greatly to the situation is an exaltation of the virtue of tolerance which is falsely seen as the virtue which governs all other virtues. In other words, we should tolerate other people in their immoral actions to the extent that we seem also to accept the moral wrong. Tolerance is a virtue, but it is certainly not the principal virtue; the principal virtue is charity... Charity means speaking the truth. I have encountered it (not speaking the truth) many times myself as a priest and bishop. It is something we simply need to address. There is far too much silence — people do not want to talk about it because the topic is not 'politically correct.' But we cannot be silent any longer."

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"Where priest and people together face the same way, what we have is a cosmic orientation and also in interpretation of the Eucharist in terms of resurrection and trinitarian theology. Hence it is also an interpretation in terms of parousia, a theology of hope, in which every Mass is an approach to the return of Christ."

"In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. ... If all Catholics are obliged to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians are obliged to do so in a particular way, in keeping with their responsibility as politicians." CDF 2003

One of the most dangerous errors is that civilization is automatically bound to increase and spread. The lesson of history is the opposite; civilization is a rarity, attained with difficulty and easily lost. The normal state of humanity is barbarism, just as the normal surface of the planet is salt water. Land looms large in our imagination and civilization in history books, only because sea and savagery are to us less interesting.
— C. S. Lewis

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"Latin is a precise, essential language. It will be abandoned, not because it is unsuitable for the new requirements of progress, but because the new men will not be suitable for it. When the age of demagogues and charlatans begins, a language like Latin will no longer be useful, and any oaf will be able to give a speech in public and talk in such a way that he will not be kicked off the stage. The secret to this will consist in the fact that, by making use of words that are general, elusive, and sound good, he will be able to speak for an hour without saying anything. With Latin, this is impossible."

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Grant unto thy Church, we beseech
Thee, O merciful God, that She, being
gathered together by the Holy Ghost, may
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penance pacified, mercifully regard the
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Food For Thought

“The legalization of the termination of pregnancy is none other than the authorization given to an adult, with the approval of an established law, to take the lives of children yet unborn and thus incapable of defending themselves. It is difficult to imagine a more unjust situation, and it is very difficult to speak of obsession in a matter such as this, where we are dealing with a fundamental imperative of every good conscience — the defense of the right to life of an innocent and defenseless human being.”

For your consideration…

"One of the most dangerous errors is that civilization is automatically bound to increase and spread. The lesson of history is the opposite; civilization is a rarity, attained with difficulty and easily lost. The normal state of humanity is barbarism, just as the normal surface of the planet is salt water. Land looms large in our imagination and civilization in history books, only because sea and savagery are to us less interesting."

- C.S. Lewis

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“I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”

Francis Card. George

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"It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been committed for fear of not looking sufficiently progressive."

Charles Pierre PéguyNotre Patrie, 1905

"If I ought to write the truth, I am of the mind that I ought to flee all meetings of bishops, because I have never seen any happy or satisfactory outcome to any council, nor one that has deterred evils more than it has occasioned their acceptance and growth."

St. Gregory Nazianzus
ep. 131 - AD 382

“We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women. If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market.”

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“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

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Food For Thought

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. . . . Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

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